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• ܚܰܪܽܘܒ݂ܳܐ
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Ceratonia Siliqua

The word which is thus rendered in the Auth. Vers. () is really the name of a tree called in English Carob-tree. It is extremely common in the south of Europe, in Syria, and in Egypt. Celsius states that no tree is more frequently mentioned in the Talmud, where its fruit is stated to be given as food to cattle and swine: it is now given to horses, asses, and mules. During the Peninsular war the horses of the British cavalry were often fed on the beans of the Carob-tree. Both Pliny and Columella mention that it was given as food to swine. By some it has been thought, but apparently without reason, that it was upon the husks of this tree that John the Baptist fed in the wilderness: from this idea, however, it is often called St. John's Bread and Locust-tree.

The Carob-tree grows in the south of Europe and north of Africa, usually to a moderate size, but it sometimes becomes very large, with a trunk of great thickness, and affords an agreeable shade. The quantity of pods borne by each tree is very considerable, being often as much as 800 or 900 pounds weight: they are flat, brownish-colored, from six to eight inches in length, of a sub-astringent taste when unripe, but when come to maturity they secrete, within the husks and round the seeds, a sweetish-tasted pulp. When on the tree, the pods have an unpleasant odor; but when dried upon hurdles they become eatable, and are valued by poor people, and during famine in the countries where the tree is grown, especially in Spain and Egypt, and by the Arabs. They are given as food to cattle in modern, as we read they were in ancient, times; but at the best can only be considered very poor fare.